I called the congressional switchboard again to speak to someone in my representative’s office. That would be the office of Mary Miller (R, IL-15). I was surprised to hear what sounded like a real person, not a recording, ask which member of Congress I was calling for. I said that I was surprised, and I added, “This is a real person, right?” And the voice on the other end of the line laughed. “Now I know you’re a real person,” I said. She was. And we wished each other a good day before she connected me.
No one picked up in Miller’s office, so for the third time in four calls over the past two weeks, I left a message. I read five sentences from a recent Jamelle Bouie column and asked, after each, whether the congresswoman agreed:
No one in the executive branch has the legal authority to unilaterally cancel congressional appropriations. No one has the legal authority to turn the Treasury payments system into a means of political retribution. No one has the authority to summarily dismiss civil servants without cause. No one has the authority to take down and scrub government websites of public data, itself paid for by American taxpayers. And no private citizen has the authority to access the sensitive data of American citizens for either information gathering or their own, unknown purposes.I closed by urging Miller to end her fealty to a lawless, reckless felon.
I have no illusions about whether these calls make any difference to Miller or anyone in her employ. But that doesn’t stop me from making them. I’ve also called my senators, Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, encourgaging a more aggressive Democratic response to rampant autocracy.
The number to call to reach any representative or senator: (202) 224-3121.
Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)
comments: 3
In some crazy story world of my own making, one of these messages gets through to Mary Miller and she has a change of heart! I feel that this could be a movie from… The 1930s would it be? Something by Frank Capra?
It occurs to me that maybe, God willing and the creek don't rise, we don't have to endure Trump's power for four years. If he screws up enough, and if the consequences are plain enough to those who won't read or think but who can at least see, then folks can vote in enough democrats in the midterms to nullify his power base of elected cynical sycophants.
Fresca, there was a woman whose letters to Chester A. Arthur had an effect on him: https://www.loc.gov/collections/chester-alan-arthur-papers/articles-and-essays/correspondence-of-julia-i-sand/. I dunno about Miller and me.
Anon., I share your sense that he has two years. I suspect that with time there'll be many remorseful buyers.
Post a Comment